2 hunters in the guild have but I stuck with MM, mostly as I am the mechanics soaker in the raid team and the range of mm with the utility works for me.
Why would that happen? There were times before were SV wasnt the complete last, but only second or third to last.
It is however very telling, that even now that MSV has insane tuning to the point of being op in aoe it is still one of the least played specs. If this was any other spec that had such strong tuning, it would be one of the frontrunners in popularity. The argument has never been that MSV isnt strong or viable, but the fact that even when it is, people dont want to play it.
With how insanely strong MSV currently is, im likely going to play it in progress for certain bosses, since its just that strong. I still need to get my 4 pc and we still need to get to the relevant bosses on mythic, but at the current tuning its just too strong.
Which means even a higher popularity doesnt mean that those players like to play MSV
SV was not the least played spec throughout BFA either; Subtlety was. This is why I don’t go around saying “SV has been the least played spec since Legion”. Strictly that isn’t true. In fact there’s even a period of time where melee Survival was more played than another Hunter spec (early Uldir when Marksmanship was unfinished and malfunctional… mostly due to all the time they spent remaking melee SV because the Legion version was such a flop). What I say is “SV is consistently one of the least played specs”.
As for this tier: I’d wait until we see more people get the tier set. So far we’re not seeing the influx of players to Survival that most of the community expected. It’s seen a big boost in M+, to be fair, but even there it’s quite a lot lower than you’d expect given the performance of the spec. BM performs way worse in M+ but sees a lot more play, as do many other specs.
I expect it to improve over the course of the tier, but ultimately it’s unlikely SV’s representation will never match its performance. After all, as I’ve been saying all this time, performance has never been the barrier preventing people from playing this spec. It’s had passable performance more or less since Nighthold, and it’s even had very good performance at many points.
What people should consider is how if ranged Survival ever had the type of performance melee Survival currently enjoys it would have no problem being one of the most popular specs in the game if not 1st place. Survival was arguably not as far ahead in Highmaul as it is now yet in Highmaul it had the highest representation out of any spec.
Finally, contrary to popular belief, overtuning melee SV numerically doesn’t suddenly make melee a good design direction for the spec. All those design flaws still exist. The lesson people should take from this is that it’s easy to buff or nerf a spec but it’s a lot harder to make people like a spec.
I can’t switch as much as I want to: my raid has too many melee as it is. I could go MM, but the rotation is so dull to me. My only other option is to reroll, but I’ve invested so much time into this character already. Rerolling isn’t going to be the best use of my time.
I came back after a year absence due to carpal tunnel, and wanted to jump into SV. Unfortunately, all melee classes reaggravated my hand/wrist so I went back to strictly ranged. Doesn’t seem to bother me as much that way. It’s a shame because SV is fun.
You should go back and check that it was you and Ogdenir who brought it up. I just corrected your strawman destruction
You bring up drama in this thread and then pretend its other peoples fault.
Not I. I like melee well enough for toddling around doing world quests etc but I don’t want to do group content as melee. I enjoy BM and so far I’m doing fairly well in raid, although that’s mostly because my guild isn’t very hardcore.
I am switching for keys this season - but not to survival. My bestie wants to stay beastmastery because she likes its playstyle. She’s not melee-averse the way I am - she was a demon hunter in bfa and season 1 SL - but she doesn’t want to roll survival and since neither do I, there’s really no reason for our semi-casual friend group to bring two bm hunters, so I’m taking my terrible shadow priest instead. Spriest isn’t S-tier, but it brings fort, grip, mass dispel and decent survivability, and in my hands it’ll be good enough for 16s/17s which is about where we cap out. Do miss bm’s mobility, though.
